Isaac Asimov: Trending quotes

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Isaac Asimov: 606 quotes30 likes

“If, as I maintain and firmly believe, there is no objective definition of intelligence, and what we call intelligence is only a creation of cultural fashion and subjective prejudice, what the devil is it we test when we make use of an intelligence test?”

"Thinking About Thinking" in Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1975
General sources

“I simply don't think it is reasonable to use IQ tests to produce results of questionable value, which may then serve to justify racists in their own minds and to help bring about the kinds of tragedies we have already witnessed earlier in this century.”

"Alas, All Human" in Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1979
General sources

“A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.”

“Generals are, as a matter of course, allowed to be far more idiotic than ordinary human beings are permitted to be.”

Our Federal Union (1975), p. 248
General sources

“In the world of today can there be peace anywhere until there is peace everywhere?”

The Egyptians (1967), p. 241
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“Generals are usually a conservative force who can be relied on to oppose social change.”

The Egyptians (1967), p. 93
General sources

“Well, it was healthy to miss once in a while. It kept self-confidence balanced at a point safely short of arrogance.”

Source: Empire novels (1950–1952), The Stars, Like Dust (1951), Chapter 20 “Where?” (p. 166)

“At least try to see my motives. Granted that I was foolish—criminally foolish—can’t you understand? Can’t you try not to hate me?”

She said softly, “I have tried not to love you and, as you see, I have failed.”
Source: Empire novels (1950–1952), The Stars, Like Dust (1951), Chapter 19 “Defeat!” (p. 163)

“Then why did you run? A man who runs needs no other accusation.”

Isaac Asimov book The Currents of Space

“Is that so? Really?” cried Steen. “Well, I would run out of a burning building even if I had not set the fire myself.”
Source: Empire novels (1950–1952), The Currents of Space (1952), Chapter 16 “The Accused” (p. 163)

“You make interstellar politics sound a very dirty game.”

Isaac Asimov book The Currents of Space

“It is, but disapproving of dirt doesn’t remove it.”
Source: Empire novels (1950–1952), The Currents of Space (1952), Chapter 14 “The Renegade” (p. 141)

“No one is so modest as not to believe himself a competent amateur sleuth.”

Isaac Asimov book The Currents of Space

Source: Empire novels (1950–1952), The Currents of Space (1952), Chapter 11 “The Captain” (p. 114)

“Is not all this an extraordinary concatenation of coincidence?”

Isaac Asimov book Foundation’s Edge

Pelorat said, “If you list it like that—”
“List it any way you please,” said Trevize. “I don’t believe in extraordinary concatenations of coincidence.”
Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation’s Edge (1982), Chapter 14 “Forward!” section 1, p. 281

“No matter how various the subject matter I write on, I was a science-fiction writer first and it is as a science-fiction writer that I want to be identified.”

In Joy Still Felt (1980), pp. 286-287
General sources

“I am not a visual person. I have spent so many bounded years in my childhood that I have grown used to having books as my window on reality.”

In Joy Still Felt (1980), p. 217
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“The undramatic fact is that I just think and think and think until I have something [for a story], and there is nothing marvelous or artistic about the phenomenon.”

Isaac Asimov book In Memory Yet Green

In Memory Yet Green (1979), pp. 301–302
General sources

“It is all too easy to forget that there are emotional motivations in history, as well as economic ones.”

The Shaping of England (1969), p. 15
General sources

“An observer studying the Solar system dispassionately, and finding himself capable of bringing the four giant planets to his notice, could reasonably say that the Solar system consisted of one star, four planets, and some traces of debris.”

"Worlds In Order" in The Secret of the Universe (1992), p. 63
General sources

“You can't lick the Uncertainty Principle, man, any more than you can live on the sun. There are physical limits to what can be done.”

Isaac Asimov The Dead Past

The Dead Past (1956)

“Scientific theories can always be improved and are improved. That is one of the glories of science. It is the authoritarian view of the Universe that is frozen in stone and cannot be changed, so that once it is wrong, it is wrong forever.”

"The Nearest Star" (1989) (reprinted in The Secret of the Universe (1992), p. 82)
General sources

“[W]hen one plays for top prizes one must be prepared to pay top stakes.”

The Roman Empire (1967), p. 125
General sources